Major Release preparation is a quarterly operational cadence. Plan a release-preview testing cycle every 4 months; coordinate code-freeze, regression testing, and user training.
- Subscribe to release-notes notifications
Salesforce Trust portal lets admins subscribe to per-instance release notifications. Add the relevant team members.
- Review release notes 4-6 weeks before preview
Read the release notes when they publish. Highlight features relevant to the org and surface critical updates that need action.
- Test in a preview-released sandbox
Identify which sandboxes get the preview release. Run the regression test suite against the new version.
- Surface critical updates to the team
Surface critical updates and required actions in writing. Track completion of any required code or configuration changes.
- Plan user training for new features
Identify the user-facing changes that warrant training. Schedule communications and walkthroughs for the rollout date.
- Coordinate the production migration window
Know the per-instance production date. Plan code-freeze windows around it; communicate the date to users.
- Per-instance schedules vary. Different orgs get the release on different weekends; do not assume a single date for all environments.
- Critical updates have hard deadlines. Letting them lapse causes silent platform behavior changes when the deprecation enforces.
- Release notes are long. Skim for relevance; deep-read only the sections that touch the org''s configuration.
- Integration partners need their own release-preview window. Confirm they''re testing against the new version on the same cadence.